Contemporary Problems of Social Work Современные проблемы социальной работы academic journal

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VOLUME 2, No. 1, 2016
30%
45%
65%
57%
32%
28%
48%
33%
24%
28%
41%
48%
22%
22%
11%
15%
27%
24%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Ability to
rapidly change
according to
market needs
Competition
increase
Current
economic
situation
Exchange rates
impact
New
customers
groups reach
Transparance
over processes
and control of
it
Major Challenge
Minor challenge
No challenge
Figure 1.
 Major Challenges That Companies Are Facing
Since the financial crisis, cost reduction and improved efficiency have been among the 
important concerns of the end users and have triggered investments in IT deployments to 
achieve savings through better resource management and improve business operations [6]. On 
figure 2 differences in understanding the challenges from business perspective is shown.
16%
24%
10%
17%
16%
31%
20%
23%
49%
46%
31%
22%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Ability to
rapidly
change
according to
market needs
Competition
increase
Current
economic
situation
Exchange
rates impact
New
customers
groups reach
Transparance
over processes
and control of
it
Less challenging
More challenging
Figure 2. 
Market Challenges That Became More or Less Important Comparing to 2014 Year
At the end of 2015, the Russian economy faces numerous challenges associated with the 
existence of financial sanctions, the low level of the prices of commodities, especially oil & gas. The 
local economy needs to go through a restructuring process, to diversify rather than still be highly 
dependent on prime resource sales. Having a tight control on costs is one of the major concerns 
of the companies during economic turbulences. Nowadays, IT is seen as a source for savings in 
business operations and, at the same time, the companies look into opportunities to save more 
on IT system maintenance by adopting outsourcing, cloud models while also simplifying their IT 
systems.
There has been a shift in customer behavior as IT becomes more business-centric in their 
view. More business users are involved and demand to have a saying in terms of IT investments 
as new technologies are resolving business pains and may bring new growth opportunities [4]. 
Figure 3 shows difficulties that companies still need to deal with despite high priority in IT 
development and modernization.

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58
CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL WORK
20%
24%
25%
25%
33%
35%
38%
39%
54%
51%
48%
51%
42%
42%
45%
45%
26%
25%
27%
24%
25%
23%
17%
16%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Optimization of end user experience
Changing customer needs in the digital world
Impacts of digitalization on company
Optimization of IT outsouring
No skilled IT staff
Securing of IT operations
Active contribution from IT to optimizing
business processes
Cost reduction and efficiency pressure
Major Challenge
Minor challenge
No challenge
Figure 3. 
Rating of Information Technology Challenges That Companies Are Facing
IT Security is a big concern as IT becomes more relevant at the heart of the business and, 
valuable information might be disclosed through possible security leakage, which can really 
harm the business itself [15]. Figure 4 shows growth of the most important challenges: inability 
to find qualified employees that can manage IT systems and impacts of digitalization on 
business. What is clearly understood is that the most qualified and experienced staff can be 
found in consulting companies, so more businesses are trying to switch from using internal 
personnel to outsourcing and project working style.
23%
28%
14%
13%
22%
34%
17%
14%
13%
16%
22%
23%
25%
27%
27%
29%
Optimization of end user
experience
Impacts of digitalization
on company
Active contribution from
IT to optimizing
business processes
Optimization of IT
outsouring
Changing customer
needs in the digital world
No skilled IT staff
Cost reduction and
efficiency pressure
Securing of IT
operations
Less challenging
More challenging
Figure 4.
 Information Technology Challenges That Became More or Less Important Comparing 
to 2014 Year
Cyber-attacks become more sophisticated and have greater impact on organizations 
with more damages than ever before, as new technologies bring higher exposure at external 
environment, while at the same time creating new business opportunities. Moreover, as IT 

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VOLUME 2, No. 1, 2016
becomes part of the core business through digitalization, any security breach impacts directly 
the business operations and increases the losses. Therefore, there are significant investments 
in security solutions to protect against it.
The main IT expenses by Russian companies are allocated to staff and investments in 
hardware, software and project services what is shown on figure 5.
 
Internal IT 
employee
34%
Hardware, 
software & IT 
services 
(CAPEX)
39%
Outsourcing
(OPEX)
27%
Figure 5.
 Share of Expenses Volumes in Information Technology Budget
With a share of 27% for the externalization of IT operational expenses, the Russian companies 
are not very far from the European average and even though there is still a lot of space for growth, 
there are already significant steps towards outsourcing, hosting and cloud models. One third 
of the companies have modified their IT budgets in a minor way, by a decrease or an increase 
of less than 5 percent, as a sign that IT investments are one of the priorities and, despite the 
economic slowdown, modernization plans are still being followed. Moreover, there are overall a 
higher percentage of interviewed companies that increased their IT budgets in 2015 compared 
to previous year (shown on figure 6) than the ones that reduced their IT investments to a 
smaller or larger extent. A detailed look at the companies’ size reveals that the companies with 
less than 500 employees have significantly increased their IT budgets in 2015 compared to 
larger-size companies (with over 2000 employees), which, in general, have either had stagnant 
IT investments or seen a significant decrease of budgets for 2015.
4%
11%
17%
29%
8%
13%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Will strongly decrease ( >15%)
Will considerably decrease (5-15%)
Will slightly decrease (1-4%)
Will slightly increase (1-4%)
Will considerably increase (5-15%)
Will strongly increase (>15%)
Figure 6. 
Information Technology Budget Change in Comparison to Year 2015

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